THE APPALACHIAN CENTER FOR THE ECONOMY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Central Appalachia is home to the most diverse and productive temperate forests in the world and the nation’s oldest rivers and streams. Our mountains are home to generations-old communities, our forests provide irreplaceable habitat for migratory birds, and the hollows of the region contain thousands of streams, many of which support native trout populations. Because our mountains also hold some of the most valuable coal and timber in the world, and because of the history of weak government oversight of the region’s extractive and polluting industries, the Appalachian environment is being degraded at an alarming rate. Whether or not industry is able to extract resources cheaply and destructively, without restoring the land, or extract them carefully, in compliance with the law, is a matter of both national and local importance. Similarly, the failure to enforce the environmental laws intended to regulate the region’s extensive chemical industry and numerous coal-fired power plants not only harms local communities, but impairs air and water quality well beyond the region.

The Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment (Appalachian Center) is a new, non-profit regional organization dedicated to protecting the unique communities and natural resources of Appalachia and to developing a sustainable economy in the region. The mission of the Appalachian Center is to use research, litigation, and advocacy to: 1) protect Appalachian communities and the natural environment that supports them by enforcing and strengthening state and federal environmental laws; 2) revitalize Appalachian communities by helping to develop and implement an environmentally sustainable economic policy for the region; and 3) conserve and restore the wilderness for the common benefit of the people who live in and enjoy the region’s forests, streams, rivers, and mountains.

The Appalachian Center works to solve environmental problems and to achieve a sustainable economic future by providing legal assistance to individuals, organizations, and communities on environmental matters of wide impact and by supporting research and analysis and promoting policies to achieve a sustainable and environmentally responsible economic policy.

The Appalachian Center has three program priorities:

• Holding extractive and polluting industries accountable by serving as a government watchdog. State environmental protection agencies in Appalachia are notoriously weak, underfunded and over-politicized. West Virginia, for example, spends less per capita on environmental protection than any other state. We will work to strengthen environmental lawmaking and enforcement in Appalachia by bringing precedent-setting litigation designed to limit the destructive effects of polluting and extractive industries. In addition, the Appalachian Center will ensure that the federal and state administrative agencies perform their responsibilities to enforce the law.
• Promoting an alternative future for Appalachia. For generations, resource extraction has driven public policy in Appalachia. Yet the communities in the most resource-rich counties of the region are among the poorest in the nation. We will sponsor original research, develop policy proposals, and advocate for their passage before Congress, state legislatures and administrative bodies. We will also conduct public education campaigns to educate policy makers and others about sustainable economic revitalization of these areas while preserving the forests, streams and rivers of Appalachia.
• Nationalizing the issues. There are a handful of areas in the country that the environmental community, Congress, and the public treat as matters of national, rather than purely local concern. Few would say that all decisions about the future of the Rocky Mountains, the old growth forests of the Northwest and Alaska, or the Plateaus of Southern Utah should be left to local politicians seeking short-term economic gains. We seek to add the mountains, forests, and streams of Appalachia to this list of special places. Over time, we will develop and lead comprehensive campaigns to place Appalachian environmental issues in a national context and to advance broad-based, region-wide conservation efforts.

Two important characteristics distinguish the Appalachian Center from other regional environmental law, policy and advocacy organizations. First, the Appalachian Center’s service area is uniquely underserved. Appalachia is one of the poorest regions in the country; the economy of the region has historically depended on extracting natural resources and heavy manufacturing jobs, most of which are either being lost to mechanization or are moving abroad; the region’s politicians have a history of close ties to industry; and much of the land is owned by absentee landowners who have no stake in the region’s future. There are very few public interest environmental lawyers in the region and little, if any, public interest environmental and economic policy analysis conducted concerning Appalachia.

Secondly, from the start, we recognize that the economic health of Appalachian communities cannot be ignored in the name of protecting the environment. It is a central premise of the Appalachian Center that the economic and environmental health of Appalachian communities are interdependent. Accordingly, research on the economic viability of environmentally sound development activities and the economic impacts of environmentally harmful activities will be a primary focus of the organization.